Thursday, September 25, 2014

I LOVE SCARY MOVIES! LOVE 'EM! That's why this October I'm counting down the Top 31 Scary Movies for a feature called FIVE STAR FRIGHTS! I've compiled a list that's around 100 movies long so far, so to help narrow it down I'm looking for your help.

Let me know what your favorite scary movie is in the comments below or tweet me your favorites with the hashtag #FiveStarFrights to @FiveStarFlicks or @5StarFlicks

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Today is officially the first day of Autumn, so here's a quick look back at the #1 movie of the Fall season for each of the last thirty years. While Autumn doesn't offer the constant stream of blockbusters (and mega flops) that the Summer does, there have still been plenty of big hits later in the year.

The numbers below are in millions of dollars and are adjusted for inflation by BoxOfficeMojo.com.

The 1980's had Crocodile Dundee, Fatal Attraction and Look Who's Talking, while the 1990's featured the critical darlings GoodFellas, Pulp Fiction and Seven. Since the turn of the century the Fall has been dominated by more family friendly hits like Meet the Parents, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Puss in Boots. Last year was dominated by the Sandra Bullock-George Clooney space disaster epic Gravity. The fall has also given us a trio of high grossing Oscar Best Picture winners, with Amadeus, American Beauty and The Departed all bringing in stacks of cash as well as awards.

So while Summer is pretty much a one note season, the Fall tends to give us a much broader range of hit movies, as awards season in Hollywood begins. After this disappointing Summer, I'm really looking forward to a change in the seasons.

Monday, September 22, 2014

Another day, another major pop culture anniversary. Today the popular nineties sitcom Friends celebrates the 20th anniversary of the series premiere on NBC.

Yes, this makes me feel old.

Seeing that this is a movie blog, not a TV blog, I thought I'd dive into the film careers of the shows six stars. Some of them have gone on to HUGE success (Jennifer Aniston) while others have failed to transition to the big screen (sorry Matt LeBlanc).

Let's take a look at their worldwide box office grosses...

Jennifer Aniston is a megastar, being able to easily hop back and forth between smaller, edgier projects (Office Space) and mega blockbuster comedies (Bruce Almighty). David Schwimmer made most of his two-plus billion through his voice work in DreamWorks Animation's Madagascar franchise (alongside Ben Stiller and Chris Rock). Courteney Cox has the Scream horror franchise, while Lisa Kudrow starred opposite Billy Crystal and Robert DeNiro in both Analyze This and Analyze That. Matthew Perry freaked out all over Bruce Willis in The Whole Nine Yards (and it's sequel) while Matt LeBlanc was only able to score a small role in the Charlie's Angels franchise.

While they have starred in dozens of films combined, the twenty films below are their very best...

Friends also had plenty of movie star cameos, including these memorable moments...

Finally, while much of the series took place at the fictional Central Perk coffee shop, I have my own favorite local hangout in real life, Blackmarket Bakery in Costa Mesa, CA.

Much like Central Perk, it's a great place to hang out and make new friends. It's also where I make all my magnetic Scrabble blog posts, like this one, honoring twenty years of Friends...

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

The 2014 box office started out strong with The LEGO Movie and Captain America: The Winter Soldier both bringing in big bucks, and then the summer tent pole movies dropped the baton. Let's be honest, the 2014 summer box office sucked. Big time. It wasn't until right at the end of summer when Guardians of the Galaxy hit screens that we finally had a $300 million dollar grosser in North America.

By the end of the year, we will have at least one more $300 million hit...

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1.

We actually might have our first $400 million dollar hit of the year. In fact, The Hunger Games is the only franchise in history to average over $400 million (in actual dollars, not adjusted for inflation).This year might actually finish with a bang, not a whimper, as two other top grossing franchises have releases coming soon as well (The Hobbit and Night at the Museum).

Monday, September 15, 2014

There are many different tools that people use to help predict the outcomes of movie award season, one of which is the box office. While there is no fool-proof way to predict the winner (though many of us claim a secret formula, I'll never tell mine ;) the box office results of a film can give you some indication of it's chances in the Oscar race.

Let's look at the previous winners from each year since 2000, to see if there are any clues to unlocking the key to winning that little golden man. The numbers are the domestic, adjusted for inflation box office results from BoxOfficeMojo.com.

A few things pop out right away to me:

1. The century started off with a box office bang with four straight films that grossed over $200 million dollars.

2. A Beautiful Mind made over $200 million dollars?!?!

3. You can't make too much money (only 1 winner over $300 million, sorry Guardians of the Galaxy).

5. Most best picture winners come out the last three months of the year (11 of 14 = 79%).

6. A pattern emerged in 2004... "One for you, one for me". Every other year a film grosses over, then under, $100 million at the box office. We are due for a $100 million winner this year.

Let's look at a few of these points. A best picture winner can't make too much, or too little, and they average around $160 million dollars. What films so far this year have grossed in that $160 million neighborhood?

It's pretty obvious that our best picture winner this year will not come from that group. What about release date? What films come out the weekend of October 11th? These ones do...

Is The Judge a best picture winner-to-be? The reaction was mixed at best at the Toronto International Film Festival, so not gonna happen.St. Vincent? Hey, it's a Weinstein, that's gotta be good for something? Right? Probably not.What about Whiplash? One of the strongest, most buzzed films coming out of Film Festivals this year, it just might make a run at the big prize. But can it gross enough to put itself in the conversation?We'll have to wait and see.Leave your comment below or tweet me @FiveStarFlicks or @5StarFlicks

Monday, September 8, 2014

Guardians of the Galaxy is showing incredible staying power at the North American box office, finishing #1 again this weekend. That's the fourth such weekend for Guardians. How impressive is that feat? Consider this:

According to BoxOfficeMojo.com, in the 764 weekends that have taken place since the beginning of the year 2000 there have been 8,346 different movies released in theaters. Only NINE of those films finished #1 movie at the box office for FOUR or more weekends.

These nine...

Here's the math on that:

9 out of 8,346 = 0.001%

That's right, Star-Lord, Rocket and the other Guardians of the Galaxy now join such luminaries as the Grinch, two Lords of the Ring, Jesus, and a certain Dark Knight in the the 0.001% club.

Over the last five years, fourteen other films have come close, but ultimately failed to reach the seemingly unattainable four weeks at #1. Only Avatar (five of it's seven #1 weekends fell in 2010)and The Hunger Games have managed to meet or exceed that milestone.

Avatar though is the only film this century with more than four #1 weekends. If Guardians somehow manages to sneak in one more #1 weekend, it would join Avatar to create an even more exclusive club...

One of the best, and sometimes worst, things about social media is the ability for some "hashtag" (IT'S A POUND SIGN, DAMMIT!) to start a trend worldwide. Sometimes they help raise money and throw a spotlight on a cause (e.g. #ALSIceBucketChallenge) and other times they just spark a goofy chain of tweets and posts.

The latest one to "go viral" is #ExplainAMoviePlotBadly. Below is a collection of my personal favorites from twitter. Enjoy!